asked the Taoiseach if he will state in respect of each of the last five years the quantity and value of concrete lamp posts or pillars imported into the country.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Importation of Concrete Lamp Standards.
4.
Goods imported are classified according to the headings of the Official Import List and this list does not contain a separate item for "concrete lamp posts or pillars", which are included under a more general heading. The information requested by the Deputy is, therefore, not readily available and its extraction would involve an examination of all the original entries which, for a period of five years, would be a very large task indeed. It would in my view, require an expenditure of staff time and resources out of all proportion to the value of the resulting information.
I appreciate the difficulty of extracting precise details, but can the Parliamentary Secretary give me any indication as to the quantity and value imported? What I should like to know is whether some of these were imported in each year.
The information I have is that it is estimated by the office of the Accountant General of Revenue, in which the entries relating to these imports were compiled, that the request for data would involve the identification and extraction of some 2,000 entries from the 2,000,000 or more received in the five year period. Even if this task were undertaken, it would not be possible to compile exact figures as importers in many cases have not shown the necessary particulars on their entries.
Have you got a computer? It would be easy with a computer?
I put it to the Deputy that the information required by him is out of all proportion to the time and resources required to have it extracted.
The Parliamentary Secretary will agree it is information of great significance to people who could have been employed making concrete lamp posts here but who were not so employed. Galway County Council, with which the Parliamentary Secretary has some association, failed to get these lamp posts here when they could have been made here.
The important significance attached to it is attached to it by the Deputy alone.
It is attached to it by the manufacturers of concrete lamp posts here.